Unblooming
by phollie
Summary: Three months following the fall of Kira, Hal Lidner struggles to pull her life back together. But of course, Matsuda, in a flurry of drunken confessions and nightmares, has ways of changing that plan entirely.
1. Chapter 1

**This is a short, Hal-centric fanfic that I have been crafting within my head for quite some time. Hal is personally my favorite female Death Note character, and I wanted to experiment with the possibilities of her emotions following the fairly traumatic events of the Kira case. I find her an interesting, intelligent character and wished to test out my writing abilities with her...and here is my attempt at doing so!**

**Please forgive me if my portrayal of Gevanni is complete crap. I need to analyze his character more deeply, methinks...**

**I don't own Death Note. But you already knew that.**

* * *

_The one who survives by making the lives _

_Of others worthwhile,_

_She's coming apart right before my eyes. _

_- The Tower, Vienna Teng_

* * *

Her calender is three months behind, and Hal Lidner doesn't seem to notice.

When she keeps in mind that the days pass by with or without her turning the monthly pages of a half-assed record of time upon paper, she simply allows the dust to gather upon the sheet and lays in bed for another hour or two. She needs to wash her bed linens something desperate, but she's been out of laundry soap for at least a week. She loses track.

She hasn't been sleeping lately. The nightmares spawned within the base of her brain, the endless dark web that has been collecting the grime of the world keep her from doing so. Not that she's all too bothered. Society can't do anything new for her now; her job is done, and as spent as her own motivation.

When she puts enough thought into it with her tired mind, society is merely a pseudonym for him. Kira.

_Light Yagami. Gunshot. Hand._

Although she's barely left her apartment in the past three months, besides the occasional outings for food or bland visits to friends who call to see if she's still functioning, she's managed to lose the full curves of her body that used to bring her endless ogling and a healthy confidence. Before now, she's never had to worry about her loved ones coaxing her to eat or being prodded for reasoning behind the sickly pale sheen of her skin. The bags spawned under her eyes are the telltale proof of her insomnia, of her nightmares and her lapse of reality.

_Light Yagami. Yellow Box. Scream._

She hasn't even cast a single glance at the trunk that holds her gun since the last time she held it, since she threw it into the damned chest to never see the light of day again. If she's lucky, she'll be able to pawn it off to some bright-eyed pen pusher without a firearm so that _they_ can point it at some distorted serial killer the way she did.

_Kira. Running. Three months._

She's been feeding off of memories and noises and visions of the world's twisted god, and quite frankly, her appetite for a new mindset is growing ravenous.

Hal Lidner is starving, slowly but surely, for life.

She gets out of bed once the alarm chimes three in the afternoon, her set limit for hiding beneath the sheets. Her legs are weak from having been immobile for hours, her head is throbbing, and she curses under her breath when the phone rings. The endless charade of being checked on via teleohone tells her that breaking the routine could only disrupt her mind, which is currently dangling on a grimy string in front of her eyes, and she answers with nothing heartier than, "Hal here."  
Stephen Gevanni, whom has kept a relatively safe distance from the woman ever since she has been placed on leave from her job, is on the other end. Much to Hal's relief, he doesn't bother with the horribly overused line of "hello" and brings his proposal to the table.

"You need some air?

Hal's mind slips another inch at the disturbingly familiar voice, and she vaguely recalls her scheme to pack as much as she can fit in two suitcases and book a flight to somewhere green. She can't listen to the man speak without her stomach sinking; for Stephen Gevanni, however indirectly, is a reminder.

_Notebook. Names. "God."_

She winces at the sunlight through the curtains and she makes a mental note to invest in thicker ones. "There's plenty of that over here," she responds. "Why, are you running low?"

Gevanni releases a forced little laugh, a seal of approval that even her social skills, those that had been polished and refined and pinned within the prized treasure that was Hal's personality, are slipping from beneath her. "Not exactly. The others are meeting up at the old bar downtown. We would hate to leave you out."

Hal rolls her eyes at that. _They'd get by…_

He is being much more friendly than normal; Hal is accustomed to the sober young man in which had lingered with the case until the fall of Kira, the fall of Light Yagami in which had been witnessed with their own eyes. To this day, Hal is unsure as to whether or not the sanity within the man's mind has been as exhausted and spent as hers. He is an intelligent man, Hal knows and amires that.

But they had admired her, too. And for what?

_Strength. Stability. _Everything that is slowly falling to shambles at her feet.

When Hal does not promptly respond, Gevanni takes it as his nod to elaborate. "Anyway, it's right down the street from-"

"I know where it is, Gevanni, thanks," she interjects before he annoys her with directions. She might as well go, she figures. It will be interesting to see if she's the only one that has been living a travesty of a life for the past three months.

Gevanni clears his throat roughly, obviously growing increasingly uncomfortable with the shift of moods their conversation has taken. "Yes, well, six?"

"Thirty," Hal adds tiredly. She does not feel the need or the drive to ratify her point to the man awkwardly lingering on the other end; five-thirty in the evening is the dreadfully designated time that her sister calls, normally sharing the line with her mother and asking the same questions that she did the previous night.

She's grown weary of _questions, _the same burdening inquiries that bring the turbulent force of her own impatience with the planet back onto her shoulders. Before she'd been assigned to the case, it was a rare occurrence for her sibling to contact her, as well as her mother, for the sole reason that they did not _approve_ of what she had become. A well-trained, quick-tongued combatant with a notable proficiency in infiltration with the suavity of a fox.

They hang up on gauche terms and Hal barely replaces the phone on the receiver steadily.

_Steady. Shots. Crash. Light. Yagami. Kira. Fall. Run. _

She makes her way to the window and endures the beams of sunlight striking her face like the slap of a memory. She remembers enjoying the sun, the way it could manipulate her skin into a golden bronze in the summertime and streak her hair with a crisp honey sheen.

Now, this very sun makes her look down at her shrunken form, her loss of curves and the tasteless wan of her skin and just…think. Wonder. Question.

She doesn't cry. She hasn't cried in years, even after her friend having been swiped by Kira right beneath her foundations. The core of her body aches; for what, exactly, she has yet to understand. But even in the midst of what feels like a collapse of _something _within her that has never quite been inclusive to begin with, Hal Lidner never cries.

She has three hours to prepare for her first planned outing, but her mind is straying from its leash, tugging relentlessly at the stem of her brain. Swallowing, she glances at the unsightly, mediocre calender sported on her wall. The dust, the three months, the recollection…it's spiraling back down her spine, through the weakened muscles of her thighs and calves, down to her toes and making the long journey back up to her skull, where it festers and remains dormant until the next time she will glance at it.

Hal climbs into bed and turns her back to the sun.

* * *

**I will be updating this quite soon, since I have the following chapters planned out already. Be prepared for some SPK and Matsuda plot arriving shortly...**

**This may only be a four-chapter-or-so fic, but I am actually quite inspired from starting it!**

**Reviews would be highly appreciated!**

**Until next time.**

**phollie.**


	2. Chapter 2

**So much for updating quickly…this fic is proving to be a challenge, but one that I greatly enjoy writing, even if it kept me up until five in the morning.**

**I'll admit it, I greatly enjoy the idea of Mello and Hal being together…so I incorporated that into Hal's breakdown. If you don't like the pairing, I at least hope that you enjoy this chapter, since it made my fingertips bleed.**

**phollie. does not own Death Note, or "the murder notebook" as L calls it.**

* * *

_The one who depends on the services she renders_

_To those who come knocking,_

_She's seeing too clearly what she can't be,_

_What understanding defies._

_- The Tower, Vienna Teng_

* * *

An hour later when Hal glides out of the shower, she thinks of Mello.

To say that she had not loved him would be a lie on her part, but there's no point in pulling the wool farther over her eyes. A bright flash of blue frequently passes by her mirror when she combs her hair; there is an occasional phantom brushing of golden hair over her abdomen when she's dangling on the edge of sleep.

She would like to think that he's reaching out to her, but the sentimentality of such a thought is so unlike the Mello that she knew that it nearly makes her laugh.

Or cry. But does Hal Lidner cry?

How long has she been looking in this mirror?

She scoffs at her reflection, her sallow cheekbones and diluted honey eyes, and forces a comb through her wet hair before tossing it into the sink. A corner of the comb chips off an scatters down the drain, and something in her tells her that she should rescue this plastic fragment before it tumbles to its death. Nevertheless, she merely cocks her head to the right and turns her gaze back to the mirror.

Blue. Ice blue, flitting across her reflection and out of sight. If she could just…

Hold onto it? How foolish. How utterly _stupid_ of her. If any of her unexlained sights mattered, then why wouldn't they stay longer than a glimpse of a second?

_You're a tease. Do you know that, Hal Lidner?_

Hal drops the towel tucked beneath her elbows and walks to her room, naked and uncaring. If Mello decides to give her a visit, he will see what effect he has had on the body that used to be so faultless that he would lavish it with warm kisses and release inside of it shamelessly. Would he still bite upon ber bottom lip and bury his fingers into her hair if he were to see her today?

Once more, she is stupid. Mello is dead, more so than her philosophy on weaknesses of the heart. He is buried six feet under, while she is forced to endure the death of her wisdom six feet above.

She doesn't put much thought into what she wears for the night, but focuses on the black items of her wardrobe. If she decides to look nice, it will be by accident and not by nature as it used to be. One black dress in which billows over her has-been curves and a pair of stockings later, Hal sits by the window and waits for a sign.

She doesn't know what she's waiting for. The signs she desires only come when she glimpses at the mirror or pulls the sheets over her head, and she is well past her sleeping limit.

_Mirror…_

Standing up, she nearly stumbles over a pair of shoes as she rushes to the bathroom. She grips the sink for support, staring down into the drain that screams to swallow her fluttering fraction of life, and lifts her eyes to the mirror.

There is no sparkle of blue. There are no whispers swirling around her ears, no grazing of gold on her stomach. Only endless, endless fading.

* * *

She arrives at the bar with an air of indifference, and doesn't bother to remove her coat. The others find her before she spots them and wave her over, confiding in a small corner of dim lighting and polished stools, but Hal manages a small smile when Gevanni nods as a wordless greeting. Just as she expected, he appears as a carbon copy of the last time she saw him, and she is unsure as to whether or not this is relieving. He does not seem to notice her own rapid whittling as she approaches their corner.

"Hal," he says, standing up and gesturing for her to remove her coat. When Hal doesn't do so, he clears his throat and allows her to take her seat without any formalities.

She takes the opportunity after the awkward hellos and nods to survey the others around her, beginning with Rester who sits across from her. She is not entirely surprised to see that he has maintained the stately muscularity and set jaw, and in spite of the thin lines of age forming by his blue eyes, he is undeniably the same Rester that she had worked with three months ago. When he senses her looking at him, he glances over at her and gives her a smile that can almost be mistaken for sympathetic.

Sympathetic? Does she really look that dire?

"It's been awhile, Hal. How have you been?"

Rester's voice drags her out of her mental tirade enough for her to respond. "Fine, fine," she says with a nod. "I've been taking some time off for personal matters. Nothing serious."

She doesn't know why she says this. They all know why she has been on leave, and who employed her to do so. Near. And when even Near tells you that you need to rest, to take some time off and breathe, you are usually much deeper into your own wear and tear than you realized. Hal knows this well, and coughs into her fist to conceal her own slipup.

She swears she hears laughter in her ears.

"Nothing serious," Rester repeats slowly, nodding. "Well, I would hope not."

Gevanni is staring. When Hal grits her teeth and returns the gaze, he clears his throat once more and nods once. So much nodding, so much throat clearing. "That's good to hear, Hal. Good to hear."

Hal takes this on the offense, and is unsure why. Nevertheless, she clenches her fists beneath the table and digs his knuckles into her wan thighs. "Good to hear?" she asks. "What, were you expecting worse?"

"No, Hal, of course not," Gevanni replies. He is reassuring her, and it angers her to no end. "Like Rester said, it's been some time. Things change over time, I'm sure you're aware."

_Stop fucking laughing, Mello._

"And some things don't change at all," Hal says. It does not come out as sharp as she wishes, but she keeps her gaze firm. "And the things that do change usually have a pretty good reason for-"

"Hey, guys, I'm back!"

Hal looks up at the sudden outburst and sees a man that she wishes she hadn't. She knows him, this beaming, bright-eyed man that is clumsily holding a glass of fizzing amber liquid, the man that stood opposite of her and the SPK on the last day of Light Yagami's life.

_Yellow Box. Crash. "Matsuda, you idiot!" _

This is the one that shot Kira…and he is smiling, wobbling, happily meeting Hal's stare with a bewildered sort of charm. How can he appear so flighty, so carefree and joyous and _Matsuda _when he was the one who had shot Light? Hal had never fired a bullet into the man's body, but she had seen him spilling blood upon the cold cement floor until he appeared nothing more than a fallen soldier that had put up more of a fight than she had ever seen in her life. They had all seen him stagger up and run off to a heaven that would never accept him, bloody and beaten and corrupt.

The so-called "god" bled just as much as Hal could if _she_ had been shot by Matsuda, who seems to be on the verge of intoxication.

"H-hi," he says, flashing her a slurry smile. "I've seen you before, right? Haven't I?"

Of course he has, even though Hal was hoping that he wouldn't remember. Perhaps three months would leave a blank slate for her to work with, and her wan appearance would simply be a first impression instead of a noticeable change.

He's blushing. Drunk. Waiting for her response. Pushing a piece of hair behind her ear, she gives him just that. "Three months ago." Nothing more, nothing less.

Matsuda laughs for reasons unknown. There is a cloudy fog hanging over his eyes as he looks at her as well as a lazy smile that betrays Hal's memory of him. He had been crying those three months ago, _trembling,_ collapsing into the arms of the task force members after shooting Kira to the ground in a mangled heap.

And now? Hal has not decided exactly what this man is, and half of her is disgusted while the other half is vaguely relieved. Even though the alcohol is lightening the man's circumstances to an extent, and that she is certain that there must be _some_ shard of anguish lurking beneath those glassy eyes, Hal wants to understand him. No, she _needs_ to understand how he's done it, how he's kept his head glued onto his neck after sending bullet after bullet into Kira's body.

But who is she kidding? He's drunk.

"Well, uh, want a drink?" Matsuda asks, holding his hand out to her strangely. Hal takes this as a sign that he wants her to come with him, and even though it would entirely defeat the purpose of him getting a drink for her, she stands up and gives a slight wave to the others at the table. She chooses to ignore the questioning gaze from Gevanni as she leaves their corner.

"I usually, uh, don't have a girl - oh, I mean woman, sorry - with me, so this is pretty cool, you know?" Matsuda is staring at her with that silly smile on his lips, yet Hal fails to see what is so "cool" about having her by his side. She does not say this, however, and merely nods and twists the corner of her mouth into a crooked smile. Matsuda seems satisfied and releases a dotty titter of a laugh beneath his breath. When he nearly loses his balance, Hal sighs and grips him by the shoulders enough to steady him. "Are you good?" she asks with a twinge of annoyance. She hasn't had to do anything like this for quite some time, and the memory of her past bodyguard scenerios disturbs her enough to turn her attention away from him.

His voice brings it back onto him. "Y-yeah, I'm fine," he says sheepishly. "Just, yeah, got a little dizzy for a second."

"Then maybe you should lay off the booze for the rest of the night," Hal quips dryly. She doesn't know why she is giving such advice to the young man; the alcohol seems to be doing a swell job at concealing any signs of emotional distress in him, if he possesses any at all.

Matsuda swallows hard and gives her another lopsided grin. "Maybe you're right. But I still need to get you something, right? I'd feel pretty bad if I left you hanging!" He chuckles and places a hand on the back of his head.

_What?_

She ignores his statement and tells him what she wants to drink, and he smiles again before ordering it. He's so beaming and bouncy and everything that Hal is not. Should she envy him? Should she search for better company?

Or should she just go home and wait for her flash of blue.

* * *

She is on her third drink, and doesn't feel anything.

There is no pleasant glow of calm within her blood, nor is there a warm flush of good-natured friendliness that used to greet her after a few drinks. But now, the effect is a numbing ice pressed against her forehead, and she has taken solace in staring off to her right at the mingling cliques of adults instead of her colleagues and drunk Matsuda to her left.

She listens to them talk, however, only because the conversations from the tables around her are a blur in her ears.

"I told her that retirement would be best, considering how the pension agency is finally out of the water, and that it would be much easier for her to go into a retirement home, but of course her own son wouldn't know what's best for her, so…"

Hal has never heard this man before, but does not turn to see his face. His voice holds a smarmy sort of defiance that Hal finds insufferable. He is speaking of pensions. The possibility of her having any less interest in the conversation is zero to none. She blocks out the rest of his chatter until another person, a woman, speaks.

"You can't force a woman into retirement, Dibson, especially your own mother, for Christ's sake. If she doesn't want to be pent up in some old folks hut, don't make her."

"I never said I was making her, Trish, it was a suggestion. There's nothing wrong with…"

Hal blocks him out again. His voice is making her cringe and long for another drink to bring the numbing sensations back to her brain.

Gevanni leans over to her. "You look distracted."

She keeps her eyes on the couple to her right, conversing and laughing and oblivious to her staring. "I am," she says flatly.

"Do you need some air?"

Again with that same question. She looks at him now, amused for the first time that night. "You must really like air, Gevanni."

He looks at her, stunned for a moment, and cracks a genuine smile that Hal has not seen for what feels like ages. It is a hearty flush of joy to see that, even for the most brief of seconds, she has inspired someone to smile, or that her social skills returned just long enough to do so.

Before she can relish it, it is chilled and frosted over in a anesthetized sort of shock that tugs at the root of her brain. The chuckling in her ears, _his_ smile, fogs her senses over until she feels the urge to either vomit or laugh with him, laugh so hard with her head thrown back that she would vomit anyway.

She needs to stop. She needs to stop this, right now, while she still has the meager strength that has just been injected into her with a fleeting second of happiness. Self-satisfaction. Something other than this blank longing for something that only scribbles along her mirror or grazes her stomach in the night.

_He's not really there. _

Perhaps she does need some air, just as Gevanni suggested. She stands up and slings her purse over her shoulder before hearing a confused sound bubble in Matsuda's throat. When she hears his chair being scooted back, she is positive that she will not be alone on her quest for the air that is refusing to fill her lungs. She is choking on something, something that is not bodily or anything that she can name. It's all in her head, she is sure of it, it's all boiling and spilling over and it's _all in her head…_

She doesn't keep track of how long she walks, or where she is even going since the mental map of the bar has now failed her, but she eventually finds the door and rushes outside into the cool night air. She trips over something imaginary. Matsuda catches her, earning a furious grunt from her. He's _touching_ her. He's holding her the way that he has no right to, and her fury is blinding her from making a clean escape from his arms. There is something burning behind her eyes.

"Are you crying?" Matsuda asks, bewildered.

What a stupid question, she thinks. "Let me go," she orders. "Let me go!"

He does exactly that and releases her clumsily, so clumsily that she stumbles against the hard brick wall with her palms holding her up. Since when has she been this unbalanced? She's not drunk, she's sure of that, but her feet are floating beneath her, occasionally touching ground and tying into knots when they do.

_Look at what you've done._

Mello or Light, she is uncertain as to who this thought is aimed at. Both have played a role in her slow-burning destruction that is now a blazing forest fire in her mind, in her joints and in her cold heart. If Hal Lidner doesn't cry, then she won't even now as she is pressed against a brick wall outside of a tavern, thinking upon the two men that have morphed her motives into something unrecognizable. She doesn't know what she wants, who she is, or what she's doing, but she'll be _damned_ if she cries in front of this drunk, dark-eyed jester that seems to think he can calm her down.

"H-hey, maybe you should go home, you don't look so good," Matsuda says shakily. "I mean, uh, not that you look bad or anything, I just…I can t-take you home, alright?"

Hal scoffs and waves an impatient hand at him. "Then get me a cab, you're drunk."

Matsuda mumbles something of acknowledgement under his breath and begins flagging down a potential ride home. Is he coming with her? Hal is not thinking that far ahead, nor does she care.

His eyes are brown, not piercing blue.

She wonders what, or who, possessed her to leave her bed in the first place, and makes a mental note to extend her

sleeping limit by another hour. Or two.

* * *

**I hope to keep my promise in updating quicker than this…this took friggin' forever. I'm quite proud of it, though, and my fingertips are healing from their toiling!**

**I love me some feedback.**


	3. Chapter 3

**No, it didn't take me over seven months to update. Nope. It's all in your head. Lies lies lies.**

**Oh, god. I am an awful person. Writer's block had spanned for over seven bloody months. Is that some new hellish record? **

**Well, in whatever case, Bialy is my hero because she is what inspired me to get back to writing this. If you haven't read her work, do so immediately. In fact, do that before you read this. Serious.**

**ANYWAY. Yes. Well. Here we are. Unblooming. Whew.**

**Don't own Death Note.**

* * *

_she carries the act so convincingly_

_the fact is sometimes she believes it,_

_that she can be happy the way things are,_

_be happy with the things she's done._

_- "the tower", vienna teng._

* * *

Hal loses track of how long she is in the cab with Matsuda, but the ringing in her ears has spanned and wrapped around her brain until her temples are pulsing with a cold blaze. Where is she? Lights are whizzing past her, flitting by, unchanging and unfeeling. The world is a mute temple, meant to be bustling with sound and color, but has been washed in a heavy indigo lace that mercilessly soaks her hair and skin. The city's screaming is muffled behind the glass of the window.

She can't remember what she had told Matsuda before he stumbled into the cab. Whether or not she'd tried to reject his company, the dripping wet of the night drowns her memory of it. She doesn't try to reach inside and search for it, save it, shriveled and waterlogged as it is; she just sits there. In the backseat of a cab that faintly smells of alcohol and some other foreign substance, in a city she can't relate to any longer, beside a flushed man that could not be more of a polar opposite from her.

All is blurry.

Her mind follows a string of disconnected thoughts before striking a solid chord. Kiyomi Takada makes her entrance.

_Fire. Church. Black._

She had driven to the scene of the woman's death, pushing one hundred and five miles per hour before scrambling to a stop in front of the charred church. A bell had chimed in her brain, that tell-tale ominous bell of dread, as the woman Hal had kept a close watch upon and guarded was being reduced to ashes. She recalls the blinding flames lapping away at the stone walls as she stood below the withering, crumbling cross atop the pointed roof.

Hal remembers feeling the burning in her throat, as if she had swallowed the flames that had eaten away at Lady Takada within that dying church. Perhaps Hal herself was on fire, she hadn't known. Her shower that night had consisted of feverishly examining her entire body for any sign of scarring, any inflamed patches of skin, only to be reassured that she had left the scene unscathed and intact - physically.

The cab reaches her house. Matsuda is talking; about what? She blocks it out and pays the fare, five dollars over and indifferent to it, and stalks up to the entrance of her apartment with the black-haired man trailing close behind. "Wow, rent must be insane here," he says blurrily. "Is it?"

"I don't pay attention," Hal mutters. She has no idea what she's talking about, but she leads him up to her complex without any further glances back to him. She turns the key in the lock and pushes open the door with her shoulder.

She would be able to breathe if she were alone, but seeing as she isn't, she turns to see Matsuda frozen in the doorway with a pained expression on his young face. She can't help but be annoyed. "Are you going to come in?"

He clears his throat and nods quickly. "Oh, uh, yeah, of course. Sorry."

_You apologize too much. _

She lets him take off his coat because he does it so awfully clumsily that she must assist him. She takes the cuff of the thin black jacket and tries to do the task gently, but Matsuda is twisting and muttering something about how his coat has _never_ cooperated with him and she is forced to yank the sleeve free from his arm before reaching for the other one. His coat is removed courtesy of Hal's exasperation and she hangs it up on the rack by the door as Matsuda ambles in, scratching the back of his head nervously.

She can't help but notice how small he looks here, how minute and childlike in his untied, too-big shoes and shaggy hair that could use a good combing, or at least a washing, at that. It is only now as Hal leans against the closed door, stepping out of her shoes and staring blankly at the young man's back, that she realizes that maybe he _had _been lost before the alcohol sank into his bloodstream, that maybe he _had_ felt the cold pangs of memory and visions of bullet-scattered boys crawling desperately in scarlet puddles calling themselves god _had_ racked his brain, all before the pleasant cloud of inebriation had wandered in to play.

"Your place is so niiice," Matsuda breathes out, his words dragging and lilting as if they are too heavy to carry. "M-much nicer than my place is." It doesn't take long for him to flop down onto the couch with an infantile yip, and as he leans his head back and begins humming to himself, Hal wanders off with a groan to find food for sobering the poor boy up.

She roots through the bread box and returns to the living room with two slices of plain rhye. Matsuda is laughing to himself tiredly, and Hal somberly thinks, _Babysitting with a sick, twisted bonus._

"You're going to get sick on my carpet if you don't eat," she says as she hands the man the bread. "You have enough alcohol in your blood to drunken up the entire West Coast."

Matsuda lifts his head, dark eyes glossy and lidded. "Me?" he mumbles before letting out a little half-laugh.

Hal narrows amber eyes and drops the bread on his lap, since he is not going to accept it from her outstretched hand anyway. "Yes," she says curtly, "yes, Matsuda, you. Now eat."

Why is he here again? Why is she tending to him like a fevered child? Because it keeps her busy. It keeps her away from the mirror waiting for something blue and flashing to strike her. It keeps her out of her bed for hours on end trying to find something to think about besides shinigami and scarlet puddles and those rusted Yellow Box doors opening and squeezing out Light Yagami, spurting out blood like a fucking faucet yet still running as if he stood a chance against the truth that he was not going to die as a god, as a martyr, but just as a boy with pretty eyes that had glittered and shone with nauseating distortion right in front of her.

_Or because I don't want you puking on my carpet._

Either way, Matsuda wolfs down the bread as if he hasn't eaten in days, and Hal wouldn't be all too taken back if he hasn't, and she takes a seat on the armchair a few meters away from him. She ignores the fact that he is practically _gaping _at her, mouth full, as she tugs off her insufferable stockings, balls them up and disposes of them by the chair; she has been waiting all night to get the damn things off, and she truly doesn't concern herself if he is watching at all. Hell, he could cheer her on and pet his crotch for all she cares at the moment, as long as those wicked stockings are _off._

"You're really-" Matsuda takes a second to swallow before slapping on a kid's grin. "You're _really_ pretty, you know. I-I really mean that, too, because you're _so_ pretty right now and-"

"Don't embarrass yourself," Hal interjects quietly, looking at her crumpled up tights on the floor. Angered by the sight of them, she stands up and makes her way to the kitchen again with a sigh of finality. "Sugar and cream?" she asks idly.

Matsuda looks at her upside-down from his tilted position on the couch, and looks so confused that Hal has to bite back a scoff. "Coffee," she affirms.

"Oh!" Matsuda exclaims, leaping up from the couch and nearly crashing to the floor before grabbing onto the arm. "Okay, then, I'll help-"

"I can handle it," Hal dismisses, waving him off with her hand. "You just sit and try not to break anythi-"

Glass crashes to the floor as well as a bewildered Matsuda, and Hal unleashes a quiet string of curses as she hurries over to pick up the broken cup; a glass of wine she had left on the coffee table is now in ruins, as well as her mood. Matsuda is mumbling something under his breath as he scratches the back of his head again, looking around oddly before looking at Hal. "W-whoa," he stutters, "I, um, yeah, didn't see that coming at all, _haha_."

His laugh is high and airy, rather dotty in a sense and nothing like Mello's, in which was always so dark and normally traced with something dreadfully ironic, but Hal bites the inside of her cheek and hastily picks up the shards of broken glass from the carpet. "I'd be more disturbed if you actually saw it coming," she mutters.

"I-I'm such a clumsy idiot, _haha, _aren't I?" Matsuda tips his head back again, his spine hunched in his sitting position, and laughs again, the uncanny sound dripping with alcohol and something else Hal can't and doesn't want to place her finger on. "I've always b-been an idiot, though, so it's okaaay-"

"You're not an idiot," Hal says through gritted teeth. She doesn't know why she says this. Something in her keeps lingering on that chilling memory of this same man firing bullet after bullet into Light Yagami's body, when he had cracked and collapsed, crying and demanding answers out of the young man about his father, about his purpose, about how ("What the hell did he die for?!"), when he had been doing everything _but_ laughing.

"No, no, noooo, I really am," Matsuda muses lazily. His eyes are closed now, head still tilted back, and he is still laughing, and Hal truly, truly wishes he would stop for the sake of both of them. "That's what Ryuzaki always said, you know. W-well, no, not really, he didn't really _say it, _he was just so _smart_, just like Light, they were so _smart_ all the time, and I just-"

This is bad. Hal Lidner knows this better than she knows possibly anything right now, because someone named Ryuzaki has come into the picture, and Light, _Light_, who will never be a safe thing for this drowning man to talk about ever again. She turns her eyes down to the floor, to the spilt stale wine on the beige carpet, just so that she won't have to look at him in his time of drunken wandering down a dark memory lane.

But she is compelled to look up when Matsuda stops talking entirely. Something has turned brittle in those glassy eyes, something prone to breakage, and she actually leans an inch back out of instinct when it sets in that he is about to, heaven forbid, cry.

For some reason, though, just as the wave of welling and trembling arrives, it is gone, because Matsuda's eyes are bright and fuzzed over with dreaminess a second later. The transition is so quick that Hal startles slightly, but stands up and begins making her way to the kitchen quicker than she had been before. "Well, I think it's time for that coffee, don't you think?" she mumbles, half to Matsuda, half to herself, wiping her palms off on her dress.

"Oh, that's right! _Haha, _I forgot about the…the coffee and stuff and…oooh, wow, I feel like I'm spinning, like my, my head is spinning, is that a bad thing…?"

Another soft thud, and from the kitchen archway, Hal peeks her head around and sees that Matsuda is sprawled out on the carpet, eyes closed and uncombed hair fanning over his flushed face, and all she can do is thank god that she will be able to make the coffee in silence.

* * *

Matsuda comes to about an hour later, and Hal has already taken solace in sitting cross-legged in the armchair whilst blankly sipping her second cup of coffee.

At first, he looks confused as to where he is, but his eyes meet hers in an almost sheepish manner, and Hal realizes that although he is still hazy with drink, he's at least not lifeless in her apartment from alcohol poisoning. Which, in a way, is good enough for her. "Welcome back," she says dryly.

"Did I die?"

His tone is the most serious she has heard it all night. She takes another sip of coffee and tries not to expose her stiff smirk. "Yes," she replies.

"Oh."

Hal watches in acute interest as Matsuda looks off to the side, brow slightly furrowed, lips puffed and parted. He almost looks charming, almost looks tragic. "N-no," he says, shaking his head, "no, that's not right."

"It isn't."

"I'm not dead." He sounds relieved.

"You're not."

"I just passed out. Right?"

"There you go." Another bored sip of coffee, and Hal's smirk has died down. This man is humourous at best, but has so many layers that she is seeing one by one, peeling away slowly as the alcohol wears off with reluctance even slower. She knows that if she were in his position, she would probably want to stay drunk the rest of her life, because this man had been up close and personal with Kira himself for years before Hal had ever seen Light's face.

But he is sobering, and she has had an hour to prepare herself for it.

"Coffee's in the kitchen if you want any," she says.

He looks lost when she meets his gaze again, and changes her mind.

"Actually, no," she amends. Standing up, she sets her mug down on the table and walks past him to the kitchen, feeling his eyes follow her. "I'll take care of it, judging by what happened last time we tried this."

"Oh, um…" Matsuda releases that same titter of a laugh, shy and embarrassed. "Sorry about that. I really am."

"I believe you enough." Hal runs her fingers through her hair, wants another shower when she gets a whiff of that scent of the bar from earlier. "We do stupid things when we're drunk. You just happen to be more bizarre than normal."

"I guess so…"

There is an odd sort of sadness in his voice, and Hal pretends not to have noticed it as she begins pouring coffee into another mug. She doesn't bother doing a guessing game for how much sugar or creamer he wants, so she brings the canister of sugar cubes and the container of creamer with her, tucked against her chest with her chin. He is still staring off into space when she returns, sets the items on the table, hands him his coffee. "I'll leave the rest to you," she tells him, taking her place back in her armchair.

But something is wrong again. Matsuda is regarding the sugar cubes with a peculiar disturbance in his eyes, unmoving, lips pursed. He just sits there, staring at them, until Hal is forced to speak. "What is it?"

That goofy grin is plastered on in record time. "Nothing," he says too quickly. His words are less slurred by now, but his cheeks remain flushed and rosy, his eyes still clouded over. "I'll just…yeah, thanks, black is fine."

Hal grimaces at the thought. "No sugar at all?"

Matsuda isn't looking at her again. That peculiar distance keeps washing in, ebbing out a second later like an uncertain tide.

"You don't strike me as the type," she continues, just to keep some noise in the room.

"I don't?" Matsuda asks weakly, eyes on the sugar cubes again.

Hal shakes her head and takes another sip of her coffee, opting for just watching him now. It seems at any moment that tide will wash in again, and she knows that his sobering is doing nothing for that previous drifting, careless mood that she had found both insufferable and awe-inspiring. She imagines his true colors beginning to drip from his pores, the gunshots resounding in his ears ("_Matsuda, you idiot!")_, in his memory, being broadcast to a singular audience that wouldn't know how to comfort him to save her life. Hell, she hasn't even changed her calender, let alone figured out how to ease the pain of someone as good as a stranger to her.

_Do you just not get it, Hal Lidner?_

Again with that chiding voice in her ears. Hal closes her eyes and pushes it out, pushes Mello out, because she doesn't feel like putting up with his games at the moment, but the flashes of blue are returning to the corners of her vision. Setting her mug down on the table, she mutters an "excuse me" under her breath and makes off for the bathroom, leaving a spacey Matsuda to stare at sugar cubes in his own world. The tide has washed back in his eyes.

* * *

Her imagination gets the best of her, and she sees Mello scoffing, sitting in the corner of the bathroom like a golden omen. Conversations materialize in her mind as she closes the door, leans against the sink, stares at him in the mirror as if he really is there.

"It's so fucking boring in here," he groans out. He is tilting his head back, exposing the taut, square jawline that had been no stranger to the tips of Hal's fingers. "Christ…and so grey. This really is Near's place, isn't it."

This conversation has happened before, but in a different bathroom. Hal recalls it effortlessly, all because it has only been a matter of months since it all occurred in the first place. Her days of Near and research and the SPK were always overshadowed by her days of _Mello_, when she would buy time to squeeze into the bathroom two floors above and fill him in on the case's happenings, sneaking in short intervals to be pressed against the shower wall in his arms. Even now, in her own apartment, it floods her memory so fast and so clearly that she has to look down at the tiling (beige; she had it that colour on purpose) to ensure that it's not that horrid grey-white.

"What do you want me to do about it?" she replies. The shell of herself peers closer into the mirror, watching the image of Mello sharpen and fade out again.

It's all so _here_.

"Liven it up a bit, I don't know," Mello says. He takes a harsh bite out of his chocolate bar and studies her with that familiar, all-too-knowing look, striking and cerulean. "You take a guess," he says, heated and low.

"You're such a pervert when you want to be."

"Then make me stop," Mello challenges.

Hal remembers how she had smirked, bowed her head and responded in her own fashion; classily ignoring him as she slipped her blouse over her head, sauntered out of her stiff work pants, and finally _breathed_.

And he would always pull that charade in acting as if he wasn't affected by her curves, by her honey eyes and dark smirk, but Hal Lidner knew just as well as he did that what they had was dangerous and irrational, and that they thrived off every second of it.

And here he is again, reenacting everything for her to feed off of. And she is sucking it up greedily, feverishly, because she is well aware of how quickly it will all die out again.

She is _molten. _She is positively _enraged, _as she whips away from the sink and storms out the bathroom with the intention to -

To what? Hal leaves that to her feet, not her mind, because she is walking back to where Matsuda is, the living room. He is standing now, and the tide in his eyes is gone, and she is _livid_ at the fact that he can push it away so _easily_, and he is no Mello but he is a survivor, and he _shot Kira_, he _shot Light_, and (_"Matsuda, you idiot!") _and before she knows it she is -

In his arms. She is in Matsuda's arms, clumsily, because god dammit, she has fallen into him like a ragdoll. And for the first time in years, Hal Lidner is crying.

* * *

**Forgive me if it was absolute shit. I've been an emotional nutjob lately, spewing out emotional nutjob oneshots that will soon all be posted!**

**Anyway, goodness, I would really love some feedback on this one, guys. This took a lot of blood, sweat, pocky and AMVs to get back in the groove of things. **


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